Many boot hanger devices have been developed in the past to either store or display pairs of boots in various arrangements. Such past boot hangers fail to provide good use of storage space, are difficult to install or relocate within a storage area, are incapable of hanging or storing multiple pairs of boots along a vertical axis, fail to provide an ideal angle for viewing stored boots, fail to provide good support for maintaining the original boot shape, and/or fail to accommodate a variety of boot lengths and weights. One such past boot hanger is shown in Japanese Number 2010115300A dated May 5, 2010 to Takuya et al., (hereafter “Takuya et al.) a copy of the document is attached to the information disclosure statement filed with the present patent application along with an English translation of the abstract. The Takuya et al. abstract and related drawing figures disclose a plurality of hangers (3) arranged along vertical spaces inside the cabinet (S1). Each hanger (3) is inserted into a single supported shoe or boot, thereby making it necessary to provide two separate hangers for each pair of stored shoes or boots. The drawings clearly show that Takuya et al. fails to provide any adjustment means for supporting boots having different shaft lengths, and the mechanical fastening arrangement used to fix the hangers to the cabinet wall makes it difficult or inconvenient for a user to install or relocate the boot hangers. In the embodiments shown by Takuya et al., it would be difficult for any user to slide a soft boot shaft up the fixed boot hanger, particularly with adjacent hangers already loaded with boots.
Another known boot hanger device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,224,607 granted to Koresko on Jul. 6, 1993 (hereafter “Koresko”). Koresko overcomes some of the hanger installation or relocation difficulties encountered with the Takuya et al. teachings by providing a boot hanger (1) attached to a closet rod by a hook (3) that is easily installed or relocated at selected locations along the rod. However, the Koresko hanger includes a support portion (5) having a pair of arm members (53) that are inserted through the boot loops (such loops, commonly also called “inner pulls”) to suspend the pair of boots from the hanger (Col. 6, Ln. 17-19). As disclosed, the Koresko hanger cannot be used with boots that don't have inner pulls, and the hanger fails to provide means for suspending additional boot hangers along a vertical axis. Koresko's boot storage arrangement provides poor use of limited closet space because clothing space is diminished when multiple pairs of boots are stored along a closet rod, leaving a large amount of vertical space below the stored boots, and rendering that vertical space wasted and unusable.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,294,007 issued to Edmondson on Mar. 15, 1994 (hereafter “Edmondson”) provides some improvement over poor space usage inherent in the Koresko device by providing a boot hanger capable of vertically suspending five pairs of western boots from the top edge of a door, but also with individual boots being suspended from the hanger by their boot loops or inner pulls. A typical interior door measures 80-inches along its length. In an instance where the Edmondson boot hanger system is used to suspend pairs of women's knee length fashion boots rather than western style calf length boots, the Edmondson boot hanger becomes less efficient with respect to good storage space usage. Based on information found on “Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia”, such fashionable knee length boots measure between 15-19 inches or greater in height from the boot sole to the top of the boot shaft. In such an instance, the Edmondson hanger system can only hang or suspend a vertical string of about four pair of 15-inch boots and only suspend about three pair of 19-inch boots along an 80-inch door length as compared to various embodiments disclosed in the present specification that are capable of vertically suspending as many as eight pair of either 15-inch or 19-inch high boots along the same 80-inch length irrespective of the boots including inner pulls.
Thus, there remains an unmet need for boot hanger systems and methods that provides improved boot storage, as well as more efficient use of storage space for boots and other clothing items in closets and wardrobes, among other things.